Joel Hay: Pipe dreams and quack pot medicine

Over a century ago, before modern science, drug companies sold patent medicines like the Parke Davis Cocaine Injection Kit, Bayer's Heroin Cough Suppressant and the Wyeth brothers' Sun Opium Tablets. Coca-Cola, then made with cocaine, was promoted as a medical tonic. Dramatic news reporting on the addictions and deaths of babies, children and expectant mothers from patent medicines led to the first federal drug law, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

As a pain reliever predating aspirin, marijuana was a big part of this medical quackery. Over 600 "medical cannabis" products were hawked for everything from curing cancer to treating arthritis and preventing blindness. Before marijuana was made illegal in 1937, Eli Lilly & Co. alone sold nearly 20 varieties of "medicinal cannabis."

Since California's Proposition 215 in 1996, 20 states have legalized "medical marijuana" and two states even allow recreational marijuana. We are coming full circle on marijuana because popularity contests – not medical science – have determined that marijuana is "medicine."

By federal law, the Food and Drug Administration must review the scientific evidence to decide whether a product has legitimate medical uses. The FDA is on record saying that marijuana isn't medicine.

Far from being safe, marijuana is addictive for about 10 percent of adult users, and 17 percent of those below age 18. Youths starting marijuana below age 15 have higher rate of addiction. There are more adolescents addicted to marijuana than alcohol and all other drugs combined. Marijuana use doubles the risk of psychosis and increases schizophrenia rates by two to six times. Marijuana use also doubles driver risk of traffic collisions and deaths. This drugged-driving risk increases exponentially when pot is combined with alcohol or other drugs.

The cannabinoids in marijuana affect every organ system. Scientists are just beginning to understand how these biologic pathways work. The most rapidly growing American health problem is obesity. Yet any pot-user with the munchies can tell you that marijuana is a strong appetite stimulant. Acomplia, an anti-obesity medication that blocks these same cannabinoid receptors, was approved throughout Europe and touted as the new wonder-drug for diabetes. The FDA never approved Acomplia since studies showed people taking the drug were at heightened risk of suicide and psychiatric disorders. Acomplia was pulled from the European markets in late 2008.

As with painkillers derived from opioid narcotics, it is possible that purified cannabinoids can be effective medication for specific purposes. TCH, a marijuana cannabinoid sold as an FDA-approved medication since 1985, is prescribed for nausea, anorexic wasting syndrome and pain relief.

Marijuana advocates talk about alcohol and tobacco as if the legality of these deadly products supports their case. Each year, 440,000 Americans die from lung cancer and other tobacco-related causes, including 46,000 from the effects of second hand smoke. Alcohol kills about 80,000 Americans each year and costs over $200 billion per year, mostly in alcohol-related accidents and lost productivity. Prescription medication overdose is now killing more people than traffic accidents. We should be making it harder to access these legal drugs rather than easier to get marijuana or other illegal drugs.

Using First Amendment rights that wouldn't apply to illegal drug pushers, legal medical marijuana millionaires are making political campaign contributions and spewing distortions about the benefits and safety of pot just as tobacco and alcohol barons did in the past. States are now engaged in a medical marijuana experiment that would never have been approved by any human subjects review board if pot were evaluated like real medicine.

Don't try to tell the victims of drugged drivers, second hand pot smoke, expectant mothers or Obamacare taxpayers that this issue is only about personal liberty for drug users.

Joel Hay is a professor at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

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